It's Not A Fashion Statement
by Marvelicious
Summary: He's no more ready for it than he was a moment, a week, two months ago. Baphomet/Morrigan; Fear play, suicidal thoughts, some body horror.


He is in hell.

Baphomet burns beneath his skin. It itches and stings, too tight and still all too little substance. He can't stop looking over his shoulder, can't shake the feeling that he is being stalked by death himself with every passing moment of consciousness.

Eyes bore into him from every angle, hellfire consuming his mind.

He wonders what it would be like to watch his boiling blood spill out - would it ease the pressure, end the torment - but his fingers won't grip the knife tightly enough. It hesitates over his flesh, barely skimming the surface, and Baphomet can't bring himself to make the cut.

 _Coward_.

He should beat them to the punchline, already knows the only way this ends. Make Death a Victory. But his hands shake and his breath catches in his chest, and his skin refuses to be stained.

The ravens are Baphomet's first indication that he's no longer alone.

He sighs and leans back - sprawling as if he'd been reclined there an age - flexes his abdomen and toys with the knife in his hand. Baphomet flicks it through his fingers restlessly: around, under, over, bright silver blade catching what light remains here and cutting through the darkness.

"Performing to dead air?" He needs to burn the tension out somehow, and Baphomet feels less guilty than he should trying to raise her ire.

"Silence your serpent tongue," the Morrigan admonishes him. "I would ravish you regardless."

Baphomet leans forward. "Ravish me, huh?" The mental image is instantaneous: Morrigan's nails digging into his flesh, her hands wrapped around his neck tight enough to make him see stars, fucking hard and dirty in the after-gig filth. More than one article of clothing hadn't survived the encounter, and Baphomet isn't exactly in the habit of wearing much.

He could take that - the consolation prize of being fucked within an inch of his life, and maybe it would quiet the racket in his head for an hour. But there's something in him, something that doesn't quite know when to stop - or maybe knows _exactly_ when to stop and doesn't care - that's spoiling for a fight.

She strangles him better when she means it anyway.

"Too many groupies earlier," Baphomet lies. "Don't care." He glances up to gauge her reaction. The Morrigan doesn't exactly take rejection well - he'd ask Cuchulainn on the details, but the guy's no longer around for a reason. And she's fresh from performing, just as raw and keyed up. It shouldn't take much.

"Most terrible of triple queen will fuck you on that knife," the Morrigan threatens. Baphomet can see her hands clenched, the tightness around her jaw telling him exactly how hard she's resisting the urge to give in to the urge to become Badb. To rip him to fucking pieces. Good. Already he can breathe like he hasn't been able to all day.

"Now that," Baphomet says, "is something I'd like to see."

The knife isn't his only defense, but it's the most tangible. He really does have a death wish. Baphomet twists it around his hand once more, then flicks his wrist to send it flying at the Morrigan.

Her hair flickers from black to red and back in the space of a blink, and her nails are talons where they close around the shimmering metal - barely an inch from her sternum.

"You. Dare."

Blood drips from her hand as she advances on him. Baphomet barely has time to react before the Morrigan is kicking the chair out from underneath him, yanking him to his feet with just a hand on the lapel of his jacket. Somewhere between the time he stumbles and when she slams him into the wall, he's lost all control of the situation. Baphomet tries to force the air back into his lungs and reaches up to push her away.

She presses the knife to his jugular before he can get out from under her, blade freezing cold against his skin. "Those that threaten-" Badb wouldn't hesitate, Baphomet knows. She would run him through without a thought - finally get this over with - but the dark fire in the Morrigan's eyes is fading slowly even as she glares him down.

"Do it," Baphomet challenges, like he thinks she won't, trying to rekindle that rage. Now that they're here, he aches for it - the bite of her blade and then nothing more. So long as the choice is out of his hands. His heart races with the thought, pulse pounding so hard that he can feel the pressure of the knife spike with each beat, threatening to break skin.

Marian's hand wavers and Baphomet sucks in another hard-won breath, squeezing his eyes shut. He can't look. Doesn't know whether to beg her to stop, or to make it quick.

For all the bravado, he's terrified she might actually take him up on his challenge, and he can do nothing but squeeze his hands into fists to confound the tremors coursing through them. If he wasn't half-serious - if he didn't want her to put him out of his misery as desperately as he is trying to steal as many breaths as he can before the inevitable - the play at danger might have him hard.

But Baphomet thinks he's crossed a line. Doesn't think they're playing any more.

Her teeth are sharp when she smiles - predatory. "Two years too long 'till _Paradiso_?" She's more careful than Baphomet expected when she strokes his collarbone with the blade, but it presses into his skin, grinds against the bone hard enough to know that he's not forgiven.

"As if paradise waits for any of us. The dead scream insensate." Baphomet can't help the shudder that passes through him at the admission, ghostly wails echoing against his skull. "Forever-" They pierce through the silence and linger until he thinks he'll be driven mad in turn by their fear and agony. Nothing can shut that out, nothing can -

Pain sings along his chest. Baphomet glances down to see a deep gash down his own sternum, rapidly coloring with blood. He thinks he might have seen it score bone. "Silence," the Morrigan demands, bringing the knife back up to his windpipe and pressing until Baphomet is forced to lay his head back.

He tries to keep his breathing steady, focusing on the cold brick behind him and the steady trickle of blood down his abdomen. It doesn't help. The pain radiates outward, leeching it's way across his ribs. It grasps tight like the fiery hand of death - ready to drag him straight down to hell if she gives the word.

"Do not pass go, do not-" Baphomet tries to joke, but he can't force the words out. He tries again, "If you wanted to feel me tremble beneath you," it pains him to acknowledge the weakness, that damned reflex racing out of his control, but it's far better to make light than let it stand, "you should have just fucked me."

"More satisfying to kill you."

She's not kidding. His pants are cold and sticky with his own blood, clinging tight to his thighs in a way that almost feels like a violation of its own. The Morrigan drags her claws up through the mess, too light a touch making his muscles revolt in fits and starts. Baphomet shivers, prickling up and down his spine.

His insides are twisted up into knots, drawn so tight Baphomet is terrified he'll burst open. He's afraid he might piss himself: a struggle to resist that insistent twinge in his lower belly reminding him that death spills more than blood and guts, but Baphomet might actually die of shame if he allowed Marian to see him brought so low.

"All die messy," Morrigan teases, as if she knows where Baphomet's fears have taken him. He shivers, all of his muscles clenched too-tight, determined she doesn't see them fail him. The knife trails goosebumps in its wake, sweeping up and down Baphomet's neck in long arcs. "Gutted like pigs and left to rot," it skims his jaw in the mockery of a caress, perhaps the closest shave he's ever had. "Even you, pretty: make pretty worm-food."

Baphomet bares his teeth, "then eat me."

He prays the slight vibration of his throat doesn't lead her knife to slip.

"Oh, not me, Baphomet-boy. Flies and maggots on your cold corpse, liquefying you from the inside out." The fingers of her free hand dance over his exposed stomach, and his skin crawls with every too-light touch. He can feel something squirming in the pit of his stomach, insects creeping across his flesh -

"What are you doing?" There are little mouths digging into him, sensation radiating out from everywhere the Morrigan's fingers alight. They're under his jacket, wriggling beneath the waistband of his pants. Baphomet rakes his nails against his abdomen, down his chest, stinging lines of pain that do nothing to halt the corpse-cleaners burrowing into him.

And then there's blood on his hands, under his fingernails, smeared across his chest - drying fast enough to pull his skin tight like he's really bloating up, decomposing under Morrigan's unfeeling stare.

 _Thought you wouldn't rot?_

The Morrigan's knife cuts into his throat without sympathy when he struggles, skin too sensitive, alight with the feeling of little feet and tiny bodies crawling over him; Baphomet jerks his head back just in time and then pain radiates like a starburst in front of his vision when it smashes against the wall at his back. "Enough!"

There's fire in his eyes and leaking from his mouth. It sears his tongue, burns away his sight.

She presses her palm to his chest, one point of cold in his inferno, and little by little the sensations melt away. When he can see again, the Morrigan still appears unfazed. "Never go gentle," she advises him.

"Damn you," Baphomet spits. He wants to rage - but his heart is skipping as if to prove that silence is worse than the reverberation clattering against his back teeth. Adrenaline spikes through his system with each separate restart until his hands are trembling. And still the Morrigan holds him captive.

She tightens her grip on the knife, knuckles replacing metal for a split second. Her other hand winds around his. "The fear is what makes it beautiful."

 _That's all there is: fear all the way down. She'll tear you to the bone and find nothing but._

Baphomet rips his hand from her grasp. "Have it then, because I don't want it."

He regrets the words instantly - too honest, feels like he's been flayed raw. It's what he never wanted her to see: that scared, petulant child demanding to be spared from the nightmares of his own making. There's nothing beautiful in it, and he should have known - should have chosen to live his life like the fucking poser he was before Marian came along.

The Morrigan frowns, something akin to pity written across her features.

He doesn't want her pity, never asked to see that look on her face when she signed his fucking death warrant.

" _Don't_." Baphomet's fangs cut into his lip and he tastes blood. It's still not the most bitter taste in his mouth.

"Not your perfect mistake now; just another one?" she mocks. " _You_ flirted with death, little necrodancer." Baphomet could swear that her features become more angular, her black hair shimmering like a flame. Badb will fucking kill him.

He's no more ready for it than he was a moment, a week, two months, ago.

"Is this what you want?" The knife digs into his neck and Baphomet hears himself cry out before he's aware of the sound originating in his own throat. He can feel his own blood spill again - hot and wet at first, but cooling all too quickly by the time it soaks into his jacket and gathers in the hollow of his collarbone.

He doesn't know how much he can afford to lose. Baphomet tries to keep his focus on the Morrigan's knife, but he's all too aware of the river of blood coursing down his chest and doesn't know if it's fear making him lightheaded, or the blood loss.

"Mind losing force, your blood its fire?"

 _Do it_ , Baphomet wants to repeat his challenge. There's no way he gets a better send off than Byron - the fool he was to crave this - but he chokes. Can't make the words form when it actually matters.

She pulls back, taking that godforsaken knife from his neck, and he's not dead. Baphomet's knees go weak.

He collapses with the wall at his back, shaking from far too much adrenaline, and it's all he can do to press his palms against the dirty cement, so dizzy he can barely see straight. "I knew you couldn't do it," he accuses, voice wavering. There are tears pricking behind Baphomet's eyes and he _hates_ the Morrigan - hates her for doing this to him, for seeing him like this.

 _Still not as much as you hate yourself_.

Baphomet can feel her standing over him - knows he's pathetic - but even the rapid beat of his heart is enough to keep him off balance. It thunders in his ears, makes the earth shift beneath his hands. He can't push himself upright, can't lift his head to see her amusement at what she's brought him to.

"Have you had enough?"

"Fuck you."

The fight has utterly deserted him, but Baphomet tries to pretend.

 _Always a pretender, aren't you? Appearance over substance._

She kneels beside him, and then her nails are scraping along his scalp, twisting his hair painfully tight between her fingers. The Morrigan yanks his head back, just shy of snapping Baphomet's neck, and there is no mercy in her eyes. "Not today."

He deserves to die this way - it's fitting - a coward on his hands and knees. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Just his luck that the Morrigan wants to play with him first.

"Beg for your life."

She tips his head back further, baring his neck and ripping his hair at the roots, and to hold himself still beneath the blade is more than Baphomet can manage. It pinches, nipping at his skin with every shaky breath he manages to suck back. "Morrigan - _Marian_ , please."

He's shivering, chills racing up and down his spine, and he can't - " _please_ ," Baphomet chokes, and he doesn't know what he's begging for.

He almost doesn't care if this ends with his blood painting the floor, so long as it's finally over.

"Do better."

"Fucking kill me then." He's not going to beg for this misery, for the privilege to carve out one more pitifully limited breath while the world marches on. A cheap show, a snarky one liner - none of it means anything. He's dead.

Died the moment he tried to woo a god with shitty fucking poetry and a morbid, devil-may-care attempt to escape from himself.

It's not worth it. It never was.

He's crying before he can help it, fat, ugly tears burning in his eyes. Baphomet knows he should be ashamed, but he can't find it in himself to care.

And then Annie is pulling him into her arms, the knife no longer at his throat.

"Not your time, Baphomet. Not yet."

He can do nothing but let her hold him together, feels her skeletal fingers brushing his hair back from where it's sticking to the side of his face. "Tomorrow, the next day? _Fuck_. I can't live like this, Annie. I can't-" It pours out of him faster than blood and so much more humiliating, until Annie takes pity on him and presses a finger to his lips.

"Fear preserves itself. Lay your head. It is no worse," she says, warmth winding all the way down to his bones where she touches, knitting together the gashes in his flesh. Baphomet hadn't realized how exhausted he was, but his eyelids are heavy. He's only half-aware of letting his head fall. "Close eyes and let gentle Annie face your void."


End file.
